Rheumatic diseases are painful conditions characterized by inflammation and swelling in the joints and/or muscles. Almost any joint can be affected by one of 100s of rheumatic diseases (e.g., degenerative arthropathies, inflammatory arthropathies, systemic conditions, connective tissue diseases, soft tissue rheumatism, etc.), which can significantly interfere with a person's ability to work, sleep, maintain desired levels of physical activity due to joint pain and instability, and enjoy once-pleasurable activities. Given that injuries and aging both contribute to progression of rheumatic diseases, and that over 20% of adults over the age of 18 suffer from some form of rheumatic disease in the U.S. alone, efforts to detect rheumatic disease at early stages, determine critical time points at which intervention would be most effective, and generate measures for monitoring of progress in rheumatoid disease treatment should be actively pursued. Furthermore, rheumatic diseases and other conditions (e.g., musculoskeletal conditions, conditions resulting in chronic pain, conditions producing acute pain symptoms, etc.) can contribute to reduced quality of life for individuals, as attributed to pain symptoms and/or loss of function. Furthermore, many other conditions can contribute to pain and/or reduced function, thereby causing a reduction in quality of life.
Unfortunately, current standards of detection, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of rheumatic disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and/or other conditions that reduce quality of life due to pain and/or reduced function are responsible for delays in diagnoses of disorders and non-optimal treatment methodologies, which fail to adequately slow or stop disease progression. Furthermore, patients often contribute to a delay between exhibition of symptoms and treatment, for instance, by seeking help long after initiation of pain symptoms. For patients with high pain tolerances, a visit to the doctor may not occur until pain surpasses an unnecessarily high threshold, by which time the pain-related disorder has progressed unnecessarily. Patients may also tolerate chronic pain symptoms for an unnecessary amount of time before seeking help. As such, patient behavior can contribute to a rapid progression of disease state prior to treatment. While some delays are due to patient-induced factors, standards of detection diagnosis are severely deficient in many controllable aspects. In addition to these deficiencies, further limitations in detection, diagnosis, treatment, and/or monitoring of patient progress during treatment prevent adequate care of patients with diagnosable and treatable conditions.
As such, there is a need in the field of patient health for a new and useful method for modeling behavior and improving quality of life for a patient. This invention creates such a new and useful method for modeling behavior and improving quality of life for a patient.